Non Suadere

I want to know what happens

When love is a blister unknown.

What is considered mature?

When I laugh for no good reason,

Is that a detriment to that?

When my music screams instead of soothes?

What if I find it soothing to sit and listen,

To screams on the speaker?

I'm some wide-eyed wonder but I forget your name.

I grate on peoples' nerves, even when they don't know me.

They do the same to me.

My wild eyes don't make us any kind of friend.

But babe, I don't mean any of this for you.

I just can't seem to make any sense of today.

I don't understand their eyes unless I can make them calm.

It's easy, but it's not.

It's like they're waiting for me to give in.

Something there is waiting to flee at the first sign of fear.

I'm too lost and bewildered at their words for anything like fear.

Like they have complete control of absolutely nothing,

Proud and sure of some matrix that can't and won't exist in any kind of reality.

But baby, I really do love you, even if your name continues to evade.

I think you maybe said it's Lilith. Lorraine.

Your look is just too longing for me to resist.

It's a searching gaze. Like lanterns fixed on a certain point.

I wish I could fix it longer. I really do.

But an ass has just passed me and of course I got distracted.

I can't really apologize. I'm the imperfection personified.

The one you spoke of and said you're not looking for perfection.

I can't understand this silence between us. There is so much more to say.

Can you really handle the truth though, like you said?

God, you're pretty in confusion. I wish I understood more.

I only ever want to understand more of things.

I stepped over some lines, but really only in my mind.

You really could be the one. If only I knew the words.

I'm pretty silent on the subject, I think.

Your voice is soft yet persuasive.

Do I even know that it's real?

How do I know?

There's a good beat going.

There's a soothing song.

Most days there seem to be no words.

I feel an inspiration locked away,

Chained and thrashing in the basement.

It has little idea what it wants.

It knows though that it's not getting any younger,

Easily set to unease. It loves and worries deeply.

Each day is a ticking of the clock, faster and more confusing than the last.

I'm more than a little irritated by it.

They say that 90% of life is your own doing.

I think that doing is more than half the problem sometimes.

A person could do just as well by being in a state of rest.

Rest, though, requires an obstinate persistence I seem to lack.

So a majority of the time I'm moved by forces that don't belong to me.

Voices requesting my utmost attention.

I'm in a constant state of feeling dislodged from myself.

Persistence is to be avoided, as the caged-up leviathan down the twisted stairs.

And yet, in the company of strangers I feel a worthless connection,

That can only be avoided by separation through an individual imperfection.

Imperfection is the driving force of everything.

It's something that separates us from beasts,

The knowledge that mistakes are what make us human,

That make us individual, that cause us to confide in ourselves

And those that understand it of themselves.

How can there be unconditional love of another,

Without the quality within ourselves?

And how can we progress without the pursuit of a perfection?

It takes a level of self-centered obstinance to survive today.

Or else you will only be a bystander in your own life,

While others control your life.

Family, friends, those you work with,

Have a keen sense of low self-worth.

The remedy is to stand your ground, and then see who remains.

The small handful who haven't left,

Shaking their heads in disappointment,

Those are your family.

To abandon oneself for fear of rejection,

To cast your niceties before the numerous lot,

Sends the cosmos into chaos.

It's better to be alone among the stars.

They are trainers of order and time.

Constant voices breed self-doubt.

They are listeners of themselves.

To be mature in yourself is a thing they consider threat.

Not that I would know. I'm preaching to myself.

Assumption is a guilty plea, however. In the land of the free.

Everywhere else it's a warning.

When you've gained everything, there is never something to lose.

You have two choices at any point in time.

You can lean into a person who shows you truth, or draw far away.

I should try to create something here.

The trouble is, I'm no creator.

I doubt if I even exist.

The only proof of anything is that my head nods when spoken to.

I exist alone, with meaningless interaction.

Truth is never true these days,

And lies are never truly false.

I've heard of echo chambers.

This life feels like that.

The sound of my silence echoing through my mind.

I'm nobody and there is nothing.

I bet that lots of you can relate.

The sound of nobody in the wilderness.

And no one will allow you to figure it out.

I have a list of things to do,

With nothing on the Be list.

As it is in Heaven, so on earth.

Does that make Heaven just a void?

I wish that I Am would just talk to me,

Tell me something there is to know.

They're silent on this matter.

There is nothing but degradation,

But degradation from what?

Doesn't that imply there was once a purity achieved?

Forget it. I'm rambling, in something like a circle.

I'm no more advanced than I ever was.

If wit is the blade in life, I'm something of a spatula.

The key is to matter, and I suppose that means different things.

Will anyone talk of me when I'm gone?

What do they say now?

Whatever happened to that guy?

I haven't heard from him in ages.

Nothing, man. Just hanging around.

Which is maybe more than some.

Eventually, my effigy can say,

Here he lies. He really hung around.

In lies and truth, awaiting answers from on high.

I wonder, what's the price of a ticket?

When does the train of thought set course?

Does it have a destination?

Is it really better scenery than here?

They tell me in this flier that it does.

Warmer climes and foliage.

There's people there to greet you with a smile.

For a buck or two, you'll have friends.

What's with all the mystery?

Tell it like it is.

All the pleasure and pain.

I really want to know you, Loretta.

These riddles make me skeptical. Mostly bored.

It isn't so evident, 

But I'm looking for an honest progression,

Somehow to connect.

Subjective truth. 

These are exclusively opposite words.

This is all my fault.

I hate this look you're fixing me in.

I don't blame you in the least.

What a good song they're singing from the box.

This beat.

How do we know it's real?